Tornado leaves trail of damage as freak storm hits town
RESIDENTS were left stunned after a “tornado” wreaked havoc as it tore through a Devon town.
Sherralyne Haynes said a tornado ripped through Cullumpton on Tuesday, causing damage to gardens and smashing greenhouses.
The Met Office posted a satellite picture confirming early on Tuesday that a tornado was forming near its headquarters in Exeter.
Ms Haynes told WMN sister website Devon Live: “We have just experienced what we all think can only be described as a tornado ripping through the Knightswood area of Cullompton in Devon.
“There has been lots of damage to gardens, trees, roofs and greenhouses have been completely smashed.”
She said the incident lasted for around a minute, but the noise was like nothing she had ever experienced.
She explained: “Some witnesses watched it out of their windows.
“There was no warning just extremely heavy rain and winds felt stronger than 100mph.”
She added that some residents have had fence panels smash through their car windows.
“It was terrifying, I thought the windows were going to blow through,” she said.
Meanwhile, she said no other part of Cullompton seems to have been affected.
She continued: “We literally watched the garden get sucked out through the fence, there’s trees down through the road.
“Everyone was out on the streets, people mending their roofs. You could almost feel the pressure inside the house.”
Earlier the Met Office confirmed tornados had been forming and posted a satellite picture of one close to its Exeter headquarters.
According to the Met Office tornadoes are one of the most violent and dramatic weather types on the planet. Its website says: “A tornado is a rapidly rotating column of air that reaches between the base of a storm cloud and the Earth’s surface. They form in very unsettled weather conditions as part of severe thunderstorms.
It was terrifying, I thought the windows were going to blow through SHERRALYNE HAYNES
Many conditions need to be present for a tornado to form but, when these conditions are met, a violently whirling mass of air, known as a vortex, forms beneath the storm cloud.
“A funnel cloud usually develops as the vortex forms due to the reduced pressure in the vortex. Strong inflowing winds intensify, and the spin rate increases as the vortex stretches vertically. If it continues stretching and intensifying for long enough the vortex touches the ground, at which point it becomes classified as a tornado. The tornado then moves across the surface causing severe damage or destruction to objects in its path.
“A tornado typically has the form of a twisting funnel-shaped cloud between the cloud base and the ground. Sometimes the vortex can appear as a slender rope-like form, particularly when the tornado is weakening; sometimes a tornado can be almost invisible, observable by the debris thrown up from the surface. Tornadoes typically spin anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere (cyclonically).”